


A New Day Has Risen

by redcandle17



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Nux Lives, Post-Canon, Slit Lives, slight Cheedo/Slit, slight The Dag/Slit, slight Toast/Slit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4070428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU wherein Nux and Slit miraculously survive. Slit tries to make sense of the changes in the Citadel, while Capable and Nux's happy couplehood inspire the other wives to consider getting a War Boy of their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Day Has Risen

**Author's Note:**

> Though this is the second one I'm posting, this was the first Mad Max fic I wrote. It's always nerve-wrecking to post your first fic in a new fandom and this is no different. If nothing else, it helped me develop a feel for the internal voices of the different characters. So, here it is.

Capable seemed very happy as she cared for her War Boy. She hummed as she carried the bowl of hot soup to her room, where The Dag knew she’d spoon feed the grown, dangerous Boy like a little boy. That she’d fuss with the pillows to make him comfortable, and kiss and cuddle him, and read aloud to him while he played with the ends of her long red hair. 

The War Boy - Nux - had helped them to escape Immortan Joe’s pursuit and he’d almost died for them. It was a miracle he’d been found alive. After the way the war rig had flipped and the explosion, they’d been certain he was dead. But no. The crew Furiosa had sent to salvage what they could from the wreck had discovered him clinging - barely - to life. 

They were all happy now. She, and Cheedo, and Toast, and Furiosa, and the Milk Mothers, and the little War Pups, and the workers, and even the Wretched down below. They were free and safe and they were working to make the Citadel a sanctuary instead of a horror. But Capable’s happiness was more personal, more… More. 

The Dag wondered about it. She decided she’d like to know what it felt like. She had a sudden inspired thought, the type of thing described as a “light bulb moment” in one old book. Not _everyone_ was happy. The War Pups were adapting well, but their older brethren were less than pleased with the change in regime. War Boys who’d been too sick to join the chase, and the ones who’d been on the chase and later found their way home wounded and weary - they kept to themselves down in the caverns. They obeyed when Furiosa ordered them to perform specific tasks, but otherwise they stayed away and made no attempt to be part of the new community that was forming around them. 

Capable had taken charge of the War Pups and volunteered her War Boy to be in charge of the other War Boys. But for now what time she didn’t spend taking care of Nux while he recovered from his injuries was spent on the Pups. The older War Boys languished unattended. The Dag nodded to herself as she considered her idea. It was a good idea. 

 

Slit had crawled home to find the natural order of things flipped in the wake of Immortan Joe’s mediocre death. The Imperator-turned-traitor had turned revolutionary. Furiosa ruled the Citadel now and she’d made big changes. Terrible changes. She had given the War Boys the option of leaving or staying; the choice was theirs, she said. But it was no choice. Slit knew he’d never make it on the road in the state he was in. So he stayed. They all stayed. 

Furiosa sent down orders for crews of Boys to do things. Repair vehicles, repair machinery, patrol the borders of the Citadel - and, insultingly, teach what they knew to those of the Wretched who could learn. Silt wasn’t well enough to join a crew. He was in no hurry either. Idleness wasn’t a luxury he’d ever been afforded before and he was enjoying the taste of it. He was in pain from his injuries, of course, but he could ignore it. Ignoring pain was one of the first lessons a War Pup learned; the ones who failed to learn didn’t live long enough to become War Boys.

The barracks were almost empty. It was just him and a couple of others who were getting worse instead of better. They were dying and no one spared them the mercy of putting them out of their misery. Slit didn’t pity them. If they had stones, they’d fling themselves from the cliffs. Then again, with Immortan Joe dead, what hope was there of Valhalla? Who knew what awaited them after death now? 

An ethereal figure slowly came into view, and for a moment Slit was a Pup again, hearing the stories of the dead who were denied Valhalla, of ghosts wandering the loneliest of dark places. But then he saw that it was a female. A living female. She had long pale hair, and flowing white clothes, and unpainted skin almost as pale as the Boys’ white paint. Easy to mistake for a ghost in the dimness of the barracks. 

Then she was close enough for Slit to recognize her. One of the Immortan’s wives. One of the breeders Furiosa had stolen. Slit had heard that the wives acted as Imperators to Furiosa now. She must have come to see why he’d been shirking duties. He was in real trouble. 

Slit groaned. It was not hard to do. His broken bones and ruptured innards pained more sharply when he thought of getting out of his bunk, of the punishment awaiting him. 

“I have soup,” the female said. 

Slit looked at the thing in her hands and, sure enough, it was a steaming hot bowl of soup. 

She dipped a spoon into the bowl and shoved it at Slit. “Eat.”

What the- The others hadn’t been exaggerating. Things really had changed. It made Slit angry. He should be whipped bloody for malingering, not be brought hot food by an Imperator. The world had gone to smeg. The War Boys were going to become soft and weak, and if there was a Valhalla, they certainly weren’t going to get into it. 

Slit snarled, but the pale female was unmoved. 

“Eat,” she repeated, impatiently. 

Refusing food was unthinkable. Immortan Joe had made sure his Boys were fed, but no Boy ever forgot the time before. They never forgot their hunger before the Immortan took them from their unworthy breeders and sires, of that desperate hunger of the Wretched. 

Slit tried to take the spoon and feed himself, but the Imperator insisted on shoving the food into his mouth. She shoveled spoonful after spoonful until the bowl was empty. 

“Are you comfortable?” she asked. 

A War Boy was not supposed to be _comfortable_ , but Slit intuited that she didn’t want to hear that he was uncomfortable either. He shrugged noncommittally. 

She looked down at him, wrinkled her face in a look of distaste, and quickly pressed her lips to his forehead. 

“Rest,” she ordered. And then she turned and walked away without another look at him.

Slit wasn’t sure what the hell had just happened. He checked his forehead but he didn’t have fever so it couldn’t have been a fever dream. And he could still taste the soup on his tongue and feel the warmth of it filling his belly. He could even - faintly - smell the lingering scent of the breeder-turned-Imperator. 

He adjusted the sack of spare belongings he used to prop up his head and attempted to turn onto his side but quickly gave up when pain resurged. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of Valhalla. 

 

Cheedo had learned to fear men long before Immortan Joe. She’d been bought and traded and stolen from man to man, escaping the very worst only because her youth and beauty made her a valuable commodity. She’d resigned herself to being used up and thrown away when she was of no further use. Then Angharad had convinced her that she owed it to herself to at least try to be free. 

It still hurt to think of Angharad and remember how she’d died. Sometimes Cheedo thought it was unfair that it was Angharad who had died. She’d been so strong and brave. If one of them had to die, then it should have been her. But then, she wouldn’t have been brave enough to make herself a shield for the others the way Angharad had done. 

She wondered what Angharad would have thought of Capable and the War Boy Nux. She imagined asking Angharad, and she imagined how Angharad would have replied. _It’s her choice. Capable is free to choose and she chooses to be with him._

Cheedo was jealous, but she wasn’t sure whether she was jealous of the War Boy for taking up so much of Capable’s time, or whether she was jealous of them both for having whatever it was they had together. Not that Cheedo wanted a man to touch and hold the way Capable and Nux were always touching and holding each other. The very thought of a man that close to her made her start to feel panicky. 

But clearly being close to Nux was very different from breeding with Immortan Joe, at least for Capable. Maybe it would be different for Cheedo too. She had to try, didn’t she? Angharad would have wanted her to. 

 

Slit was sitting up in his bunk, industriously cleaning an assortment of small arms from the armory. He was not going to be caught lazing about if that pale Imperator should come back again. It’d been as many days as he had fingers and she hadn’t come back so far, but he wasn’t going to count on his luck holding. Nux had always been the lucky one. 

Nux. Slit yanked back a bolt with more force than necessary. Immortan Joe was dead mediocre and traitor Nux was living like… like… like somebody _important_ and powerful up there in the Dome with the wives-turned-Imperators. While he was down here cleaning sand from rifles and waiting for his body to mend. He was going to leave when he was well enough to. He had to. He couldn’t stay here where Nux was celebrated for his part in causing things to change the way they had. 

“What’s your name?”

Slit damn near jumped out of his skin. He looked up to find a figure drawing nearer and nearer. It was a female, a different one than last time. This one’s hair was dark and her skin was bronze, but she wore the same flowing white clothes as the other one. Another Imperator. 

“Slit,” he answered hurriedly. 

“Slit,” she said. “Slit,” she murmured again. She seemed to be testing the sound of his name. 

Dimly, distantly, he remembered being called something else, but he couldn’t quite remember what. It didn’t matter. That other name was nothing. Slit was the name he’d been given as a War Pup. 

“Organic Mechanic says I’m not fit for duty yet, but I’ve been working.” He held up a rifle for her to inspect. “I’ve been stripping them down and cleaning them good and proper.” 

“That’s good,” she said, but there was a doubtful tone to her voice. 

“And when I’m done, I’m going to head up to the bay and work on an old wreck that could-”

She seated herself beside him and Slit stopped talking. He didn’t think she was interested in his work after all. He couldn’t fathom what she wanted from him. There was the obvious. Every nerve of his body was aware of how she close was and how shiny she was. But he dismissed that possibility immediately. Not him. He wasn’t that lucky. Nux was the one they said was sharing the red-haired Imperator’s bed. 

Perhaps… Perhaps she was planning to overthrow Furiosa like Furiosa had overthrown Immortan Joe and she was looking for War Boys to fight on her side. Oh, that would be chrome. Slit was thinking excitedly of which Boys he’d ask to join them when he noticed she had a hand hovering over his arm. 

“May I touch you, Slit?”

Oh, how he imagined her touching him then. But when he uttered his assent hoarsely, she just touched her fingertips to his forearm. 

Slit didn’t know what the hell she was doing. And looking at her, he realized that she might not know what she was doing either. 

Caution warred with recklessness inside him. She was an Imperator, but she was here on his bed and touching him. He could end up shredded, but he’d be less than mediocre if he didn’t even attempt to make a move. 

Slit grasped her shoulder to pull her to him, only for her to squeak and scurry off the bed. She ran away. She actually _ran_ away. Slit was left staring at nothing and wondering if he’d ever understand what was going on here these days. 

 

They were sitting outside where the green things grew to eat their mid-day meal. Her, Cheedo, The Dag, Capable, and Nux. The food was nothing special, the same fare they had for every other meal. But Capable had insisted they eat outside among the plants today. 

“It’s called a picnic,” Capable explained. She’d read about picnics in one of the old books that had been Joe’s only true kindness to them. “Long ago, when there was green everywhere and all different kinds of food, people would take food out somewhere on the green and sit and eat with friends for leisure.”

Nux looked torn between believing every word his goddess uttered and incredulity at what she was saying. Toast could hardly believe it herself. Despite all that Miss Giddy had taught her, stories of the world before it died were too fanciful to be real to her. Surely people had never been so carefree and had so much that they just lounged around outside eating for fun. 

They remained sitting in a loose circle after their food was gone. Capable and Nux were leaning against each other - even The Dag had given up teasing them since neither was the least bit embarrassed by how much they enjoyed the other’s closeness. Cheedo was braiding The Dag’s hair, and The Dag kept edging Toast’s rifle a little further away, trying to see if she could steal it without Toast noticing. For now Toast allowed her to think she was succeeding. 

It was nice. Nicer even than the talks the five wives used to have on lazy afternoons when Joe was away at Gas Town or the Bullet Farm and they were safe for next few hours. Back then, no matter how much they enjoyed each other’s company, they were still acutely aware that they were locked up in a fortress within a fortress and that eventually Joe would come back. Now they were free and the monster was dead. And if another monster came… Toast snatched her rifle away from The Dag, who sighed with exaggerated disappointment. 

Nux let out a hoot of approval and amusement. 

Toast gave him a tentative smile. It had taken real effort to learn to relax around him. The first time she’d ever seen a War Boy was the day her own personal world died. Her people had been journeying across the wilderness looking for better, like so many others, when they’d stumbled into a patrol of War Boys. Toast’s people had been armed and they’d fought to defend themselves, but the War Boys were more demon than men. Rather than being deterred, they charged directly into the gunfire, screaming something Toast had been too terrified to recognize. She knew what the word was now. _Witness._

She’d witnessed. She’d witnessed everyone she’d known killed or captured into slavery. She herself had been presented to their leader as a special prize. Joe had been so pleased at receiving a new breeder he’d ordered double rations for his Boys that night. Toast had witnessed it. 

Capable put her head on her War Boy’s shoulder, smiling. His hand moved to cover hers where she had it placed on his opposite arm. They did this effortlessly, absently. Like it was nothing. 

It was everything. It was a reason for living beyond just surviving or even being free. Once upon a time, Toast had taken it for granted that eventually she would find a boy she liked and together they’d build a life to share. Then she’d been forced into Joe’s harem and she never wanted to see a man again, let alone touch one. 

But looking at Capable and Nux she remembered a boy she once met and the kisses they’d traded. Toast vowed not to let Immortan Joe rob her of more than he already had. 

 

Slit was assembled with the other War Boys and the War Pups in the largest of the repair bays. Furiosa had summoned them. She stood on the hood of a wrecker and gave them a brief, blunt speech. “You stayed. So you’re going to be part of this community. You’ve had time to adjust, and some of you have tried and some of you haven’t. Anyone makes trouble, he answers to me. Is that understood?”

They gave a wordless shout, same response they’d have given back in the days when she was a loyal Imperator to Immortan Joe. Immortan Joe had loved it when they chanted his name and even cried out “Daddy,” but Furiosa didn’t seem bothered by the lack of proper worship. She merely gave them a nod and hopped down from the wrecker. 

Boys and Pups alike respectfully stepped aside and opened a path between them for their leader to exit. The event wasn’t over though. Nux climbed onto the wrecker and then helped a red-haired female up beside him. 

“Capable,” the little Pups shouted cheerily. 

Capable was apparently the name of the red-haired Imperator, who was smiling at the Pups. She certainly was shiny. Even Nux seemed to glow a little beside her. He wasn’t painted white like a War Boy. The traitor. 

“You aren’t War Pups and War Boys,” this Capable female announced. 

All around Slit Boys looked uneasy and murmured in confusion. 

“You aren’t things. You are boys and men. War Pup and War Boy are what your jobs are called - they aren’t what you are.” 

“We are free men, brothers,” Nux spoke at last. 

“You are no longer an old man’s battle fodder,” Capable said fiercely. Slit noticed that she took Nux’s hand in hers and appeared to squeeze it. 

“We won’t fight to die and go to Valhalla,” Nux said. “We’ll fight to protect the people of the Citadel. We’ll fight to live.”

There was another female walking among the assembled ranks of War Boys. Slit had not seen her until she stood before him, looking him up and down. She was shorter than the others and she carried a rifle slung over her shoulder, but by how shiny she was, Slit identified her as one of the wives-turned-Imperators. 

She was still studying him. Slit felt compelled to speak. “What can I do for you, Imperator?”

She shook her head. “Never mind.” 

Slit watched her leave the way Furiosa had gone. He wasn’t sure for what exactly, but he knew he’d been rejected. Deemed unworthy. Slit looked back up at the pair on the wrecker. Capable was still talking and Nux was scanning the crowd. Slit glowered at him. Lucky smeg. 

Finally the talking was done. Nux jumped down from the wrecker and immediately turned to catch Capable as she slid down into his arms. Slit shouldered his way to the front of the group surrounding them. Stupid little Pups. They were too young to care how shiny a female was, so why did they worship this Imperator? 

There were Boys gathered there too. Boys who looked at Nux like they wanted to be just like him. Weak-minded Wretched-spawn. But Nux was high up in the world now and Slit wasn’t averse to using him to pull himself up. 

“Nux,” he said, with far more friendliness than he’d ever shown his driver before. 

“Slit! You survived.” Nux seemed happy he was alive, although he shifted in front of Capable, putting himself between her and Slit. As if he didn’t trust Slit. 

Slit found he was flattered rather than offended. So Nux thought he had the stones to do something to an Imperator and go up against Furiosa? He grinned. 

“Slit was my lancer,” Nux explained to Capable. 

“Nice to meet you, Slit.” 

“Imperator.” Slit bowed to her.

She looked confused. “Imperator? Oh! You think I’m an Imperator? I’m not an Imperator.”

“But she’s in charge,” Nux said quickly. “Her and Toast and Cheedo and The Dag. They’re second only to Furiosa.” 

“We don’t call ourselves ‘Imperators’ though,” Capable said. She added thoughtfully, “I suppose we ought to have titles if it would make things easier for everyone.”’

The short female with the rifle reappeared through the throng of Pups. “We might as well be Imperators,” she said. 

“ _He_ created Imperators,” the Capable not-Imperator said. 

“He’s dead,” the other female said. “That’s good enough for me. If we aren’t going to rename the War Boys, we might as well assume the title of Imperator.”

Slit was aghast to hear that they’d considered making the War Boys call themselves something else. Thank Holy V8 reason had prevailed. 

“All right, then,” Capable agreed. “We’ll talk to the others and Furiosa about it.” She smiled at Slit. “Thank you, Slit. This was your idea.”

Slit didn’t know whether to be thrilled or horrorstruck. 

“Good thinking, War Boy,” said the Imperator who’d previously dismissed him as unworthy. “There’s hope for you yet.” 

Immortan Joe was dead and he could no longer deny which way the wind was blowing. Slit cast aside all reservations and begged, “Grant me the honor of riding as your lancer, Imperator.”

She snorted. “I’ll need a car before I can have a lancer, War Boy.”

“The blackthumbs are nearly done building cars for each of you,” Nux said. He looked at Capable proudly and she smiled at him with a different sort of smile than she’d given everyone else. Slit could guess that Nux had built her car himself. 

“Well, there aren’t many of you left to choose from,” his Imperator said. “Might as well be you.” 

Glory be. Lancer to an Imperator. Nux’s luck had finally rubbed off onto him. Now he only had to find out his Imperator’s name without letting on that he didn’t know it.


End file.
